Unseating incumbents in Africa calls for planning

Outgoing Gambian President Yahya Jammeh

The recent declaration of Ghana’s opposition leader Nana Akufo-Addo the winner of the 2016 General Election was received with heightened emotions and discourse on the topic of unseating a head of state in Africa.

Whereas the elections in Gambia that saw Adama Barrow beat Yahya Jammeh, Gambia’s authoritarian president also proved it is possible to unseat an imperial leader, perhaps the departure orders that the electorate handed to Nigeria’s Goodluck Jonathan through the election of Muhammadu Buhari rekindled this possibility in a wider sense.